


Twelve

by Venstar



Series: Meaningless Scars [12]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Questions, Skyfall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 12:10:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15267225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venstar/pseuds/Venstar
Summary: More laughter followed the insults, as rock after rock was thrown, passing time, until a shape loomed on the horizon.





	Twelve

**Author's Note:**

> @ruswitch asked a question about Bond in Turkey. “Please, someone, explain how Bond managed to crawl halfway across the country half dead and probably hemorrhaging from interesting places.” so i decided to write about that.

The sun was highest in the sky, shadows were absent and the laughter of youth rang out across the valley, followed by the soft plop of rocks as they hit the water over and over again. It was just a game to them, to escape the confines of home and more chores after the noonday meal. 

“Watch how far I can throw this one!” One of the boys yelled out, before flinging his rock high into the air, landing just short of the river.

“Adalet, your arm is as weak as your brain!”

More laughter followed the insults, as rock after rock was thrown, passing time, until a shape loomed on the horizon.

“Bahri, bahri!” Adalet pulled on the shoulder of his companion, who was squatted down, drawing figures in the dirt with a stick.

“What?” Bahri jerked his shoulder out of Adalet’s hand. “What?”

“What’s that?”

Bahri followed Adalet’s pointing finger and saw the strange shape drifting slowly down the river. He raised a hand to shade his eyes. “Huh. I’ve heard about these!”

“River monsters?” Adalet laughed. “Maybe we should kill it. The village will call us heros, for saving them.”

“No, no. It’s not a river monster. It’s a manatee!” Bahri shouted gleefully, before he started running down the bank of the river they had been standing on. 

“Hey!” Adalet shouted. He hesitated before joining his friend. Bro code. “What’s a manatee?”

Bahri laughed as he waded into the shallow edge of the river. “It’s like a…big, fat, grey sea cow. Harmless. The Americans have them. Maybe this one escaped.”

Adalet stumbled down the final few feet of the bank and knocked into Bahri as he came to a stop. Bahri pushed him back. “Why would an American sea cow be in a Turkish river?”

“You ask dumb questions. Here it comes!” Bahri yelled excitedly, punching Adalet in the shoulder. “No one will believe us!”

“I don’t even believe us,” Adalet muttered, kicking water at Bahri.

What followed, was a series of events that two young boys with wild imaginations…couldn’t have even dreamed of.

“Um.”

“Well, it’s…a man? Not a manatee…but does that still make it a man?” Adalet asked. He backed up out of the water, but his braver, dumber friend waded deeper to approach the man floating face up in a grey suit. “Is he alive?”

Bahri cautiously raised a hand and grasped the edge of the man’s jacket, he gave a gentle tug, guiding the ‘body’ towards the shore. “I don’t know. Get over here and be useful.”

Adalet hesitated before he splashed forward and grasped the man’s arm. Together they hauled the man half in and half out of the river. His shoes were gone, his socks clung to wet feet. There were jagged holes in the suit jacket. Bahri peeled one edge away, when Adalet stopped him.

“What are you doing?” Adalet hissed.

“Looking for a wallet.”

“We’re NOT robbing a dead man!” Adalet shook Bahri’s arm.

“I’m looking for his name. He has to belong to someone, somewhere. He’s not from around here, look at his hair, his skin, he’s white. HIs face is sunburned even as he floated down here, from where I don’t know! Now get off and let me look.” Bahri pulled his arm out of Adalet’s grasp, his logic overpowering his friends objections. Bahri flopped the suit jacket over and that was when they saw the hole that went through the shirt and into the man.

“Is that…” Adalet whispered. He cocked his head to the side and flipped the other side of the jacket open. “Are those…”

“Bullet holes,” Bahri whispered reverently. “He’s been shot. Who would shoot a foreigner and then dump him in the river?”

Adalet shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe he needed to be shot.” 

Bahri sat back on his haunches, the water soaking into his trousers. He scratched the back of his neck. He reached out and peeled one of the man’s eyelids open. A bloodshot blue eye was revealed. The iris retracted in the sudden light. “He’s alive, shot, from who knows where. We can’t leave him like this.” He gave Adalet a pleading look.

Adalet shook his head again, this seemed to be a habit when dealing with Bahri. “No. Absolutely not.”

“But he’s hurt. We can take care of him!”

Adalet threw his arms out to the side and then up to the sky. “We! He says we. Why! Bahri, he’s a guy that’s been shot, not a lamb that’s broken his leg. We can fix a broken lamb’s leg, but we can’t fix this type of injury! It’s a gun shot!”

Bahri ignored Adalet and moved around to grasp under the blond man’s shoulders. He nodded to the man’s feet. “Help me. We’ll put him in Old Elif’s shed. She never goes back there anymore. It hurts her joints to walk that far.” 

Adalet huffed and walked around and pushed Bahri away from the man’s shoulders. “If I’m being forced to help you with one of your charity cases, you take the feet end, I’ll be over here. I hope he kicks you.”

Bahri grinned and ran around, catching up the shoeless feet and hefting him up with Adalet. They made their way slowly and surely to the old garden shed Bahri had in mind.


End file.
